My Perspective - Blank canvas
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- Published on Thursday, July 14, 2016
By Kate Jackman-Atkinson
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
Health is one of the most important issues facing any person. Our jobs, our relationships and how we are able to live our lives are all dictated by our health鈥� anyone who has known someone with ailing health knows this to be true.
This is why our health care system is so important, and why we spend so much on it. In 水果视频, it鈥檚 the largest single provincial government expenditure. In the 2016 budget, health spending accounted for over $6 million of the total planned expenditures of just over $16 billion. If you add together the next two largest areas of expenditure, Education and Families, they don鈥檛 even total the amount spent on Health.
So just how are we doing in this important and expensive area?
No health care system can be perfect and we are constrained by the realities of limited resources鈥� financial, physical and human. We face shortages of physicians and nurses, we face wait times for surgical suites and access to advanced diagnostics and we face the grim reality that at a certain point, performing procedures aren鈥檛 economically viable for a publicly funded health care system.
Understanding the constraints, we still want to know how we鈥檙e doing and how we compare to Canadians in other jurisdictions. Being able to compare information from across Canada gives us a chance to look at other Canadians, with a similar health care system, and see where we are lacking or where we are excelling.
Statistics Canada gathers health information from across the country to facilitate such analysis. The data tells an interesting story. The 10 and 3, a website that uses statistics to tell stories about Canada and Canadians, published an article last year looking at the healthiest and least healthy areas in Canada. The authors used data from provincial health authorities, which offered the most localized information available.
They used StatsCan鈥檚 2013 Health Profile and looked at the rate of asthma, diabetes and cancer; access to medical doctors; daily smoking rate; rate of overweight residents; and perceived mental health to paint a picture of the residents鈥� health. These figures were compiled to create a composite health ranking.
The data showed a distinct urban-rural divide, bad news for 水果视频鈥檚 mostly rural population. The 10 unhealthiest regions in Canada were rural, while the 10 healthiest were in urban or metro areas.
But the data doesn鈥檛 tell the whole story. Mostly because it can鈥檛鈥� there isn鈥檛 health information for all of the regional authorities. For example, for the Assiniboine Regional Health Authority (the data precedes amalgamation), there is no data about many health factors, including smoking rates or obesity. Across the prairies, there isn鈥檛 the statistical data needed to paint an accurate picture of Canadians鈥� health.
A lack of quality data can only lead to difficulties in making good decisions about the health needs of area residents. Between an aging population and rising levels of obesity and diabetes, it鈥檚 never been more important to have an accurate picture of 水果视频ns鈥� health. Unfortunately, in many cases, all we can see is a blank canvas.
